Re: New editors' draft

On Tue, Sep 11, 2012 at 6:19 AM, Stephen D Green
<stephengreenubl@gmail.com>wrote:

> In 4.2:
> first paragraph:
> "For any sequence of bytes, a conforming MicroXML parser MUST be able to
> report correctly whether it is a conforming MicroXML document. If it is a
> conforming MicroXML document, then a conforming MicroXML parser MUST be
> able to report the correct abstract data model for the document."
>
> ...
> later:
>  "A MicroXML parser is still conforming if it fails to meet the
> requirements of the first paragraph of this section only because of
> limitations of computing resources."
>
> Not sure about the use of MUST in the first paragraph. It seems to be
> pointless making it a MUST if that is then weakened later to say there is
> some vague category of parser which breaks the conformance requirement but
> is allowed to do so because it somehow can't keep it. That just sounds like
> a SHOULD.
>

Well in that case no MUST in any RFC would be valid, since all machines are
subject to be inability to cary out a requirement due to lack of resources.
 At the same time,  think your next suggestion is a good one:



> Perhaps the two paragraphs should be combined to say something like:
>
> "For any sequence of bytes, a conforming MicroXML parser that has the
> processing capability to do so, MUST be able to report correctly whether
> it is a conforming MicroXML document. If it is a conforming MicroXML
> document, then a conforming MicroXML parser MUST be able to report the
> correct abstract data model for the document."
>

A variant of which gets the added clause a bit out of the way of the main
point:

"For any sequence of bytes, a conforming MicroXML parser MUST be able to
report correctly whether it is a conforming MicroXML document, provided it
has sufficient computing resources to do so. If it is a conforming MicroXML
document, then a conforming MicroXML parser MUST be able to report the
correct abstract data model for the document."


or just weaken the MUST to a SHOULD:
>

This is certainly not an option.


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